MP’s ‘ten years of drunken sex attacks on young men’

Accused: Nigel Evans, centre, denies raping a student at his home after the 22-year-old spurned his advances (Picture: LNP)

A senior MP exploited his position of influence to carry out drunken sex attacks on young men at parliament and the Conservative Party conference, a court heard today.

Nigel Evans, former deputy speaker of the House of Commons, denies indecent and sex assaults on six victims, and raping another, over a decade.

The ex-Tory could ‘make or break’ the careers of people seeking work in Westminster and ‘pressed his sexual attentions’ on young men, the jury was told. ‘He not only abused those young men, in some cases seriously, but he abused the positions he held,’ said prosecutor Mark Heywood QC.

Evans, now an independent MP, was often ‘in drink’ and on one occasion ‘plastered’ when he committed the attacks, Preston crown court heard.

In late 2002, he is accused of putting his hand down the back of a man’s trousers in a busy bar in Soho, west London. At the Tory Party conference the following year, he is said to have tried to put his hand down the trousers of a young man who was drinking with a friend.

He was moved away but returned minutes later to do ‘exactly the same thing again’, it was alleged.

In 2009, a gay man interested in working in politics was allegedly sexually assaulted by Evans during a visit to parliament.

The complainant, aged about 21, is said to have been beckoned out of the Strangers’ Bar by the Ribble Valley MP, who drew a curtain behind them and tried to kiss him. In the same bar soon after the 2010 election, Evans allegedly cupped a man’s genitals through his clothes ‘without warning’.

The 56-year-old’s offending ‘escalated’ – culminating in the rape of a 22-year-old student at his Lancashire home last year, the court heard.

The alleged victim spurned his advances and both went to sleep, it was claimed. But, a couple of hours later, the student woke to find he was being raped on the bed, the jury heard. The trial continues.